Now, get a food offer when you're hungry

From sending you exciting offers when you are hungry to giving great deals on flights when you have a wait-listed train ticket, startups know who and when exactly to tap.Aparna Desikan&Ranjani Ayyar | TNN | December 29, 2016, 10:45 IST

It's not just Facebook or Twitter ads that startups are using to attract users. Now, companies are taking to micro-marketing vis-a-vis mass marketing ads.

From sending you exciting offers when you are hungry to giving great deals on flights when you have a wait-listed train ticket, startups know who and when exactly to tap.

For example, you add two dishes to your cart on Faaso's app and do not check out in next 15 minutes, you will get a notification from Faaso's, encouraging you to complete the order. For a customer who regularly orders non vegetarian dishes, Faaso's sends offers on vegetarian dishes during the fasting season.

"We map the journey of each user and send out push notifications to those users who order on specific days, with offers on the frequently-ordered items. If they usually order on Wednesdays and they haven't placed an order for three consecutive Wednesdays, we remind them of us. This improves the conversion rate as the ordering is impulse-based," said Revant Bhate, chief marketing officer, Faaso's.

The startup preserves data for three years to engage with users. Besides city-specific data, information on corporate heavy locations and the time of order are also tracked.

Mobile app engagement platform Clevertap, which tracks app performance, says travel, ticketing and e-ecommerce are the major sectors looking at micro-segmentation with as small as 10% of the customer base.

"For e-commerce companies, cart abandonment is an issue, which can be mitigated through micro-segmentation and for hotel booking startups, it helps in cross-selling and up-selling. Startups are quickly adopting the technique, while bigger companies are testing waters," said Anand Jain, CEO, CleverTap.

Micro-segmentation helps in re-installation of apps among those users who have un-installed them. For travel company Ixigo, targeted emails to users who had uninstalled the app led to a re-engagement rate of 12.5%. The emails asked about pain points.

"We also send out personalised emails for those who have wait-listed train tickets with offers on flights. Data about vacationers and their usual time of travel has been tracked," said Himanshu Periwal, vice president growth, Ixigo.

Fintech startup EarlySalary uses the location of the customer (as provided by the customer) to identify similar people. "If our customer is 35-year-old who graduated from Symbiosis and working with a startup in some area, we will find people with a similar profile in that area to focus on because it is more likely that they will need a loan too," said Akshay Mehrotra, cofounder, EarlySalary.

The startup identifies micro-geographical areas like an IT park or a cluster of offices to find potential users. "We prefer micro-marketing. It is directed to a particular audience rather than a mass marketing campaign on Facebook or Twitter."